When I worked, I did so in a professional capacity for a huge, world-wide corporation involved in the commercial food service industry. We did equipment, services, design, etc. for commercial kitchens in schools, hospitals, restaurants and the like.
During the course of my duties, I became friendly with a man who was director of services for the local Salvation Army. They had 3 missions to care for the homeless, drunks, and those down on their luck. They also had a secret location to house and protect abused women and children. They ran a number of thrift stores and also provided employment for some of these indigents many times. All in all I found the SA to be a very community-oriented entity and religion was almost a peripheral thing.
Not to downgrade their religious intentions, but listening to religious oriented talks from a standard-version Bible was the "price of admission," if you will, for receiving the free services. It also wasn't forced on anyone but I'd expect hungry, tired people who are being fed and cared for are quite a bit more receptive to listening to the religious materials than your average man on the street meeting up with a JW at their doorstep who interrupts their day.
Now, interestingly enough, my friend (who was, himself a Christian scientist) told me that fully 90-95% of all money collected by the SA was re-invested in their services. They used 90-95 cents of each dollar collected to support their works and ministry and only 5-10 cents of each dollar left for overhead, salaries, etc. I thought this was phenomenal. That was in the 90's so may be less today, but still very good in my opinion.
After that long winded buildup, my question is how does the WTB&TS allocate their funds? Is there, or does anyone know of any information that breaks down the distribution? Like how much goes to the WTB&TS and how much is used for other purposes of any reason? I know most charities keep a much higher portion for themselves (it seems...) than they use for their actual helping services. I am not sure about the Red Cross but I'd wager it is much higher than 5-10% of income that they keep for themselves.
Besides printing costs and buying high-priced real estate how much and in what way does the WTS give back to their people? Loans made for building projects that are expected to be repaid don't count, I'd think...
Anybody have an idea of how this compares? I'd be curious as to how going door-to-door, trying to retain almost complete exclusivity, and not having a hospital, day-care facility, schools, shelters and all services like that for their own members much less anyone of the general public could makes the members feel so arrogantly superior and/or justify the lavish spending with (seemingly) little to show for it of the headquarters.
OK, whose got that information?
Robert